Xbox One Update: Party Chat Improvements, Screenshots and More

This month’s system update on Xbox One brings you some of the most-requested features by our fans including screenshots and improved tile transparency. We heard great things from members of the Xbox One preview program following their sneak preview and are excited to bring these great new features to everyone on Xbox One today.

Check out the list of features in the March system update that are starting to roll out tonight:

Screenshots – New this month is a highly requested feature by our community from the Xbox feedback site. While playing a game, you can now take screenshots on your Xbox One console by simply double-tapping the Xbox button on your controller to capture a screenshot and pressing Y to save the screenshot. You can also say “Xbox, take a screenshot” to take and save a screenshot.

The Upload app has been updated so that you can manage your screenshots in addition to your game clips. To set a screenshot as your background, go to Upload, open the screenshot full screen, press the Menu button, and select Set as background. You can also use Upload to share screenshots to your activity feed, attach them to messages, add screenshots to your showcase, share to Twitter, and post to OneDrive. Additionally, your game clips and screenshots will be shown in a new area on your profile.

Suggested friends – Everyone can use new friends! Suggested friends will include people you might know—so you can add more friends to game with—and top community broadcasters and clip creators—so you can get more great content in your activity feed. To find new friends, go to Friends and look for people under the Suggested friends heading or select the Suggested friends button. Or, if you don’t have a ton of friends yet, just check the Friends area of Home.

Sharing your name – We’re rolling out two new ways to share your real name: with all of your friends, or to everyone in the Xbox Live community. You can also continue to share your real name with select friends or no one, if that’s what you prefer. Gamertags are still the primary method of identifying yourself on Xbox Live, but sharing your real name helps people recognize you who might not know you by your gamertag. The new name sharing options can be found under Friends > My profile > Name sharing settings.

Party chat enhancements – We added two new icons to party chat to show each participant their own microphone status. The Kinect icon means the Kinect is being used as the mic and the headset icon means the headset mic is being used.

Tile transparency – As a result of your feedback, we’re adding a setting to vary the level of transparency for your background images. To do this, go to Settings > My Xbox > Tile transparency.

Voice search privacy – We added a new setting to share voice search data to allow anonymous collection and analysis of voice data when using Bing on Xbox to search. Go to Settings > Privacy and online safety > Custom > Share voice search data to change the setting.

Report spam – The Messages app has an added option to notify Xbox when you receive spam. To report a message as spam, select it, press A on the controller, select Report, and then choose Spam.

Live TV & OneGuide in Australia – Support for OneGuide is now available to all users in Australia for free-to-air TV listings. Additionally, the OneGuide app will be pre-pinned for users in Australia a few days after the March system update goes live.

Xbox One Digital TV Tuner in Australia – Xbox One owners in Australia can pre-purchase the Xbox Digital TV Tuner at the online Microsoft Store, Availability of the tuner is planned for March 25, 2015.